Chapter 2
When Rachel opened her eyes again, sunlight was streaming into the car. At least it looked like sunlight compared to the darkness to which she and the others had become accustomed. There was also the smell of air, though it seemed almost as tainted as the air in the boxcar.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, Rachel realized it was hazy daylight, not sunlight. Everyone was being herded out of the cattle car, and as she climbed down, she found herself being pushed over to one side with Albert and his friends, as well as a group of other healthy young boys and girls and men and women in their twenties and thirties. All the others; the old people the pregnant women, the young and old mothers with children under ten... all of them were being lined up across the way.
In front of her, Rachel saw a line of men holding rifles and sub-machine guns, all wearing the black uniform of the Schutzstaffel-the dreaded SS. Behind them was a high fence of electrified barbed wire, and behind the wire was a series of small huts uniformly lined up none with windows. From where she stood, Rachel saw the words DREI LAGER, which meant that was the third line of windowless barracks. To the left were two more lines, while to the right, an endless line of windowless huts stretched farther than her eyes could see.
Off to the left she saw huge brick buildings, and the buildings and a quantity of gigantic smokestacks. Black smoke was pouring ceaselessly from the huge chimneys, and ashes continually rained down all over the camp, constantly blotting out the sun.
Rachel saw the other line of people being marched off toward the brick buildings, while the line the was in was separated once again, with men on one side and women on the other. The line of men was led through the huge wooden gate, then marched off in one direction, while the line of women were marched through the same gate and led in another direction. The cold way already eating into Rachel.
Looking at the top of the gate as she entered, Rachel saw the word AUSCHWITZ. And underneath, written in German, which she barely understood, were the words written on the gate's of Hell in Dante's Inferno: ABANDON ALL HOPE YOU WHO ENTER HERE.
The people in the camp were Blaring at her and the other women. Rachel noticed all the other people were women, which meant the men were in another part of the camp. The forlorn looks on the faces of the women made Rachel's heart jump with fear. What kind of a place was this?
With all the other women In her line, Rachel was led into a large wooden building. There, in a huge room with SS soldiers lining the walls, she heard the order
"STRIP!"
At the far end of the room, standing on a platform, was a tall man, clean-shaven, wearing the uniform of the SS, with the double lightning insignia on his shoulders. He was the man giving the orders.
"Here," he shouted out, "you will all be put to work for the greater glory of the Third Reich. You will obey immediately when given an order. If not, you will either be shot, hanged, or taken to the showers. At no time will you question any order given you by a uniformed soldier. Later, you will see what has happened to those who have dared resistance of any kind. We have Jews decorating the entire camp, as you will see. Now all of you... strip!"
Reluctantly, Rachel took off all her clothing as did all the other women around her. They huddled nakedly in the middle of the room as suddenly a heavy blast of water hit them. And then a second blast hit them, and a third. Three different hoses were being used to wash all the filth off them. They screamed and screeched as the leering soldiers continued to play the hoses on them, aiming for their genitals and breasts
When the hoses stopped, the women were taken in groups of five and made to sit in wooden chairs with splinters while the hair was shaved from their heads. Then they were made to stand on benches as their pelvises were, shaved... not too delicately. Rachel felt more than one soldier "searching" her vagina with his finger for any possible hidden valuables. Had it not been for the humiliating circumstances, Rachel might have found herself getting heated up again.
After being shaved, Rachel was dusted with a powder meant to keep lice from crawling over her. And then, with the other women, she was led into the women's section of the camp, where she was assigned to the fifth barracks, or lager, section. She was wearing a grey shift, like every other woman in the camp. Her own clothing had been taken away.
She and four other girls her age were brought to an old harridan by one of the soldiers.
"Bruni is your superior," the soldier told Rachel and the other girls. "All our orders will be transmitted to her, and she will give them to you. Different women will be assigned different jobs. Those of you who do your jobs will be rewarded by being allowed to work again for the Fuehrer. The others will be taken to the showers."
The soldier left, and the old hag, Bruni, seeing how pretty Rachel was, shaven head and all, immediately began picking on her, making her sweep the entire barracks, and beating her with a stick when she didn't move quickly enough.
"One of these days I'll get out of here," Rachel muttered at her through gritted teeth. "And when I do, old hag... look out."
Bruni cackled, showing her gums as she swept back long strings of disheveled white hair, attesting to how long she had been in the camp, then turned her wrinkled face to Rachel, and snapped, "You want to get out? Hee hee! Don't worry. One day, you, like so many others before you will get out. You know how? Through the smokestacks. That's how all of you get out."
The hag pointed to the chimneys still belching black smoke, and Rachel stared at her, shivering.
"What does she mean?" Rachel asked, turning to another woman who had been there some little while.
"You'll find out," the other woman said, her voice dead.
Supper, the only meal of the day, was served at somewhere between seven and eight o'clock. The women rushed to line up, and those who were last on line found themselves with nothing to eat. Supper consisted of raw potato peelings, a small piece of black bread, mudlike coffee, and for those at the front of the line, a piece of liver.
"Where does the meat come from?" Rachel asked, being lucky enough to have gotten a piece of liver.
"From the ovens," one of the other women replied as they huddled inside the lightless, windowless barracks eating their scraps.
"Do they burn animals in those ovens?" Rachel asked, curious how liver got into the ovens in the first place.
"Stupid girl," Bruni, the old hag cackled. "Don't you understand? You work until you are of no further use to the SS. Then they lead you and a whole group of others to the showers. But from what we have learned, no water ever comes from the showerheads. Just poison gas. And then, when you are dead, and your body has been stripped, and the hair that grows back has been cut off, and your skin has been peeled to make lampshades, and the little bit of fat you have is used to make soap, the rest of you is put into a large oven, and you go up the chimneys. Hee hee hee," she cackled.
Getting to her feet, Rachel staggered out of the barracks and over to the stream running from under the latrine. There, she vomited up her entire meal.
The next six weeks were hell for Rachel. Every morning, while it was still dark out, she had to get up and stand with the other women, in groups of five, waiting for the Germans to count them and make certain everyone was there. The Germans kept meticulous records, and not only knew how many people were in each camp, but knew the names and ages of all of them.
Each morning, after the count had been taken, certain women were selected from the camp to work in the munitions factories. The rest simply waited. And then, at about two-o'clock in the afternoon, the men were seen walking from their area past the women's area, toward the large buildings. These were the men who stoked the fires. Rachel later learned they were replaced every three weeks, themselves being gassed on the last day of the third week. Then a line of other men were seen heading for the buildings, and Rachel knew these were the men selected for execution. Most of them were taken to the gas chambers, but some were hanged in front of everyone, merely for the amusement of the commandant. Others were taken and used in hideous experiments.
And then the soldiers would march into the women's quarters for a selection of those who were doomed that day. And they were docilely led away, never to be seen again as the huge smokestacks continued belching soot all over the camp.
Rachel's hair began growing again, and it wasn't long before more than one soldier began looking at her as something other than an animal marked for extinction. She had lost fifteen pounds in the six weeks as she learned to eat the bread and potato scraps, though never again eating the liver which many of the other women craved. The baby fat fell away from her body, and though she wore the shapeless grey gown, it was obvious she had a beautiful body. Her rounded breasts made the shift she was wearing stand up and away from her body, also revealing her long legs and rounded calves. Her period came twice in those six weeks, assuring her what Albert had done had not wrought any permanent damage. The women feared pregnancy as much as sickness. Any women with a swollen belly was gassed. Any woman too sick to report for the morning count was gassed. The Germans had no time to waste with any people who might hold them back.
Although Martin Borrman was the genius behind Auschwitz and the other camps like it, he was never seen at this death camp. The camp was divided into the two main sections of male and female, and then each section was divisioned off with a hauptmann or sturmbanfuehrer heading each division. Often, the hauptmanns were changed.
The latest hauptmann, or captain, to arrive and take charge of the division of which Rachel was part, was a young Aryan sadist known as M.M. Von Teich. No one knew what the M.M. stood for, though it was rumored his father had been unhappy with him at birth and had named him Mickey Mouse after the American cartoon mouse. He was short, no more than five feet-six inches in height, had a closely cropped head, wore a monocle. and smoked cigarettes with a long, black cigarette holder. Like his predecessors, he wore his black uniform with pride, and like his predecessors, enjoyed starting off the day by hanging a half-dozen Jews. Sometimes he would have them cut down before actual death, though their necks were already broken, and then he'd let them lay on the ground and take hours to die. Other times he'd bury them alive. All-in-all, Von Teich was a product of which Hitler would have been proud.
Von Teich liked women. He had been in camp five days and had gone through five women. One of them had been sent back, one of them had been given to a lieutenant, and three had been sent up the chimneys. None had satisfied his sadistic Aryan urges. All they had been good for was containing his sperm.
December was a frigid month at Auschwitz. Like all the other women there, Rachel wore only her shift. Her feet were bare, and she had learned to survive by stealing from the other women, just as they had stolen from her. Survival was the most important thing. If one survived long enough, one was always able to outwit the others.
It was a cold Saturday morning when she lined up for the count. And that particular morning Von Teich wanted to amuse himself by cutting off the breasts of a few Jewesses, so he went to the camp lineup, himself. He intended selecting some ugly Jewess with large breasts. Then he intended cutting off her nipples, and then layers of her breasts, enjoying her screams the entire time.
Walking along the line of women, he stopped in front of Rachel. The young girl saw the cruelly handsome face, but didn't think of him as a man. He was a butcher. Yet he was staring at her, the monocle in his eye gleaming with lust. She saw he was interested in her.
The riding crop in Von Teich's hand came up and circled her face. It pressed under her chin, lifting her head.
"You do not have the face of a Jew," he said to her.
"I'm not a Jewish," she replied, softly.
"So? Is this possible? Have the Wermacht made another error? Why were you interned if you are not Jewish?"
"Our house was close to that of the Jewish community. The soldiers thought it was part of the community."
"Ach, I see. Not Jewish, yet living close enough to be contaminated by them. Well, well, fraulein, it is not fitting that you should live among these pigs if what you tell me is true. And looking at you, I am, at the moment, inclined to believe you... perhaps because it pleases me to do so. You will come with me, ja?"
Von Teich motioned to one of the men standing near him, and the man walked over to Rachel and grabbed her arm. He led her out of the lager and away from the others. They walked for more than five minutes before she came to the wooden building housing the captain's quarters. She was ushered inside and saw there were rugs on the floor.
"I am the hauptmann's adjutant," the corporal told her. "Inside, in the next room, you will find a bathtub. I will have buckets of hot water brought in for you, and you will scrub yourself until all the dirt is gone. Then you will put on a robe you will find in the bathroom, and you will wait. Ja?"
"Yes, of course," Rachel nodded, more than a little terrified.
What did this SS captain want from her? In the next moment she knew the answer. One didn't stay six weeks in Auschwitz without becoming wise to certain things. But how could she please Von Teich? The rumors circulating through the camp said he loved to deal out pain, lots of pain. Rachel, hardened as she had become, wondered if she would be able to survive such an ordeal. Yet, to survive, she knew she was willing to endure anything. She had to make the captain want her. It was the only answer. Three of the five he had rejected in the past five days had been exterminated. Rachel wanted to go on living.
Her period had ended two days earlier, so she was safe for the moment, as far as pregnancy went. Seeing bottles of seltzer, she knew, from what other women in the camp had said, how to douche with them to prevent unwanted babies from swelling her belly. Von Teich would not tolerate her for long if she became pregnant, and she, herself, didn't want to carry the fruit of so vicious a monster in her belly.
Sitting in a nearby wooden armchair, she waited.